My Sister’s Keeper

Posted on June 25, 2009 at 6:32 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language and brief teen drinking
Profanity:	Brief strong language (one f-word, a few other curse words)
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen gets drunk
Violence/ Scariness:	A theme of the movie is cancer and there are characters who are very ill with explicit and graphic images of treatment and symptoms, sad deaths
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	June 26, 2009

How far would you go to save your child’s life? How far should you go? Those are the questions posed — and largely ducked — in this film based on the best-selling book, My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. The New York Times recently said that in Picoult’s books, which often focus on “terrible things” happening to children, “he assault on any individual family is typically mounted from angles multiple and unforeseen.”

The “terrible things” here are inspired by a real-life story. Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian (Jason Patric), learn that no one in their family matched their daughter well enough to be able to donate bone marrow or blood cells she needs for cancer treatment. So, they decided to have another baby, one specifically genetically tweaked to be able to provide her sister with healthy cells, starting with the blood from her umbilical cord. As she says, most children arrive by accident, but she was designed to be born for spare parts. At age 11, having spent her entire life being pricked and prodded and now being asked to give up a kidney, Anna (Abigail Breslin) hires a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue for “medical emancipation,” to get permission to stop.

Solomon had to choose between two mothers who both claimed the same baby and he was not related to any of them. But Sara and Brian must choose between their daughters, and they are so desperate to save the one who is sick that they cannot admit to themselves the damage they are doing to the one who is well. The ones who are well — there is also a son who is so overlooked that he sneaks back into the house after being out all night only to find that no one noticed.

Director Nick Cassavetes (“The Notebook”) wisely changed the jarring ending in the novel and is very effective in conveying the matter-of-fact mastery of the details of the symptoms and treatments, a touch of authenticity that is in sharp contrast to the one-dimensionality of the characters. He overdoes the pop songs on the soundtrack, though, with so many montages it feels like a music video punctuated with brief scenes of family anguish. But Picolt insists on allotting tragedy to every character as though she is dealing cards. And she undermines the power of the story and its themes with a syrupy overlay that distorts the issues so that the result is more gooey than dramatic. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel composes exquisite images. But they add to the sense the film does exactly what it says it does not do and ties everything up in a mode that is just too neat and convenient instead of engaging in a forthright and honest way with the issues and the characters. That just rings hollow and ultimately disrespectful to the conflicts it purports to portray.

Patric, who should be in more movies, is outstanding as Brian. The look in his eyes as he watches his daughter go on a special date is heart-wrenching. Diaz, in her first role as a mother, is fine in the quieter moments but never reaches the ferocity that is at the heart of the story. As the sick girl, Sofia Vassilieva is luminious and wise. But the best moments on screen come from Joan Cusack as the judge. Every tiny gesture and look is searingly authentic, a bracing dose of reality in the midst of the gooey saints all around her.

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

Posted on October 26, 2008 at 8:00 am

“Kit Kittredge” is remarkable for what it is and just as remarkable for what it is not. It is wholesome but it is not sugary. It is family-friendly but it does not gloss over economic realities and family stress. It is true to the spirit of the 1930’s but respectful of all we have learned since that era about respect and tolerance for differences of race and gender. And it is a good movie with important lessons but it is not one bit dull or preachy. Three cheers for Kit and for producer Julia Roberts for making this movie everything the devoted fans of the American Girls series hope for.

Abigail Breslin (of Little Miss Sunshine) plays Kit, a 1930’s heroine very much in the spirit of spunky 1930’s and 40’s female journalists like Dorothy Thomson and those portrayed in films by Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday) and Jean Arthur (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington). In a nod to those classic movies, this one begins with Kit striding into a Cincinnati newspaper office to ask the editor to print her story. And the editor (Wallace Shawn) is every bit as choleric as newspaper editors in 1930’s movies always are.

But Kit will soon have bigger challenges than being underestimated by a grumpy newspaper editor. All around her, families are struggling because of the economic problems. Fathers are losing their jobs and her friends are losing their homes. Kit’s own beloved daddy (Chris O’Donnell) has to leave to try to find work in Chicago. And she and her mother (Julia Ormond) have to open up their home to boarders to make ends meet.

Some of the people around her become fearful and suspicious but Kit and her mother maintain their sense of optimism and generosity, sharing what little they have. A courageous pair of young hobos insist on working for the food they get from Kit’s mother and they introduce Kit to a community of homeless people who help each other any way they can.

Kit enjoys the boarders, especially a lively dancer (“30 Rock’s” Jane Krakowski), and a friendly magician (Stanley Tucci). She takes comfort in some small distinctions — unlike her friends, she has not lost her house or had to sell eggs or wear dresses made from a flour sack. And her father has promised to keep writing. But then things get tougher. And they get toughest of all when every penny her family has is stolen and it looks like the thief is her friend.

Nim’s Island

Posted on August 6, 2008 at 8:00 am

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild adventure action and brief language.
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril, reference to loss of a parent, character who is scared of everything
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 4, 2008
Date Released to DVD:	August 4, 2008
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001APZMJI

A pair of heroines on opposite sides of the world team up in an eye-filling and heart-warming story from Walden Media, the latest in its series of fine films based on popular children’s literature.

Eleven year old Nim (Abigail Breslin of “Little Miss Sunshine”) and her marine biologist father, Jack (Gerard Butler), are the only human residents of a remote but idyllic South Pacific island. While Jack studies nanoplankton, Nim makes the entire island her school, with the animals as her teachers and her friends. Every few months, a supply boat brings another book by her favorite author, Alex Rover, an international man of adventure.
But Alex is really Alexandra (Jodie Foster), a writer so terrified of just about everything that she lives on canned soup, constantly sanitizes her hands, and cannot get far enough outside her front door to retrieve the mail. Alexandra has created a hero who is everything she is not – fearless and always eager to go where he has never been and try what he has never tried.

To get information for her new book, Alexandra emails Jack for details about a volcano he described in an article for National Geographic. But he is away for two days obtaining plankton samples, so Nim answers, thinking she is corresponding with the dashing Alex (also played by Butler , as envisioned by both Alexandra and Nim). By the time Alexandra realizes she is writing to an eleven-year-old, Jack is missing and Nim is alone on the island. And the woman who was terrified to walk four feet to the mailbox must go halfway around the world to help her new friend.
Husband and wife directors Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, seamlessly combine adventure, drama, comedy, and fantasy as Jack, Nim, and Alexandra have to confront their separate but often parallel fears and challenges. As Nim tightens the rope around her waist so that she can climb the volcano, Alexandra is tightening the belt of her robe and gathering her resolve to walk out the front door. All three of them find their determination tested and creativity challenged. And all find assistance from unexpected friends.

Nim is an enormously appealing heroine and it is especially welcome to have a story about a resourceful and courageous young girl. The film wisely makes her the center of the story in a way that young audiences will find empowering and Breslin’s unaffected interactions with the creatures and natural screen presence are a pleasure to watch.

Of the three characters, Nim is closest to the imaginary Alex Rover, confident and capable. She navigates the island by gliding on zip wires like a modern-day Tarzan. She not only swims with the sea lion; she teaches it to play soccer and boogie. She can fix the solar panels on the roof to get the electricity and satellite uplink back in working order, protect the newborn baby turtles from predators, rappel down the side of a volcano, and make a dinner out of mung beans and meal worms. When the island is invaded by a pirate-themed cruise ship bearing pina coladas, beach chairs, port-a-potties, and chubby Australian tourists, Nim and her animal friends set up a “Home Alone”-style series of booby-traps to scare them away.

Butler is fine as Nim’s fond, if distracted father and as the heroic Alex. And it is a treat to see Foster enjoying a comic turn in her first film for families since her Disney days, when she was Nim’s age, and shared the screen with an Oscar-winning star, Helen Hayes in “Candleshoe.” Here’s hoping when it is time for Breslin to pass on the torch to a young actress 30 years from now it will be in a movie as good as this one.

Parents should know that this film features a child and adults in peril, a brief image of a wound, some gross-out humor, and a reference to loss of a parent. There is also some intrusive product placement.

Families who see this movie should discuss why Alexandra created such a brave hero when she was so afraid of everything? Would you like to live like Nim? What would be the best part? What would you miss?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Shipwrecked and the book that inspired this movie. They will also enjoy seeing Foster and Helen Hayes in Candleshoe.